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Facial Symmetry and Judgements of Attractiveness, Health and Personality Personality and Individual Differences 41 (2006) 491–499 www.elsevier.com/locate/paid Facial symmetry and judgements of attractiveness, health and personality Bernhard Fink a,*, Nick Neave b, John T. Manning c, Karl Grammer d a Department for Sociobiology/Anthropology, Institute for Zoology, Anthropology and Developmental Biology, University of Goettingen, Berliner Strasse 28, D-37073 Goettingen, Germany b Human Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology and Sport Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK c Department of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK d Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institute for Urban Ethology, Vienna, Austria Received 9 August 2005; accepted 20 January 2006 Available online 18 April 2006 Abstract Bilateral symmetry of physical traits is thought to reflect an individual’s phenotypic quality, especially their ability to resist environmental perturbations during development. Therefore, facial symmetry may sig- nal the ability of an individual to cope with the challenges of their environment. Studies concerning the rela- tionship between symmetry and attractiveness lead to the conclusion that preferences for symmetric faces may have some adaptive value. We hypothesized that if symmetry is indeed indicative of an individual’s overall quality, faces high in symmetry should receive higher ratings of attractiveness and health, but also be perceived as demonstrating certain positive personality attributes. College students’ attributions of a set of 20 female faces varying in facial symmetry were recorded. As predicted, faces high in symmetry received significantly higher ratings of attractiveness, health, and certain personality attributes (i.e., sociable, intel- ligent, lively, self-confident, balanced). Faces low in symmetry were rated as being more anxious. These dif- ferences were not caused by an attractiveness stereotype. The present results lend further support to the notions that (i) facial symmetry is perceived as being attractive, presumably reflecting health certification * Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 551 39 9344; fax: +49 551 39 7299. E-mail address: bernhard.fi[email protected] (B. Fink). 0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2006.01.017 492 B. Fink et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 41 (2006) 491–499 and (ii) people also consider facial symmetry as a cue to an individuals’ quality with regard to certain per- sonality characteristics. Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Face; Symmetry; Attractiveness; Personality; Attributes 1. Introduction Developmental stability refers to the capacity of an individual to produce a well-developed, symmetrical phenotype in the face of developmental perturbations caused by such as disease, tox- ins, parasites, etc. (Livshits & Kobyliansky, 1991). The inability of the organism to implement such a developmental program when challenged by developmental stress leads to small deviations in bilateral symmetry. Such deviations may indicate an individual’s exposure to adverse develop- mental effects and the corresponding ability to resist such stress (Grammer, Fink, Møller, & Thornhill, 2003; Møller & Swaddle, 1997; Thornhill & Moller, 1997). In humans, there is consid- erable evidence that developmental stability relates to numerous fitness components (for reviews see Gangestad & Thornhill, 1997; Grammer et al., 2003; Thornhill & Gangestad, 1999). Hence, a symmetrical face may signal the ability of an individual to cope with the challenges of his or her environment. Numerous studies have demonstrated that attractiveness is positively related to fa- cial symmetry (e.g., Grammer & Thornhill, 1994; Jones et al., 2001; Penton-Voak et al., 2001; Rhodes et al., 2001a) and also to bodily symmetry (Tovee`, Tasker, & Benson, 2000). Symmetrical people of both sexes are reported to have greater emotional and psychological health, and symmetrical men were also found to have greater physiological health, than their asymmetrical counterparts (Manning, 1995; Manning, Scutt, Whitehouse, Leinster, & Walton, 1996; Shackelford & Larsen, 1997). Furthermore, symmetrical men and women are rated as being more physically attractive than asymmetric individuals (Gangestad & Thornhill, 1997; Grammer & Thornhill, 1994). At a behavioural level symmetric men report more sexual partners in their lifetimes, begin sexual intercourse earlier; engage in more extra-pair sexual relationships within a romantic partnership, and stimulate more copulatory orgasms in their romantic partners than less symmetrical men (Thornhill & Gangestad, 1994; Thornhill, Gangestad, & Comer, 1995). However, despite studies demonstrating the direct effects of symmetry on rated attractiveness, other research suggests that symmetry can be associated with attractiveness for reasons other than direct effects of symmetry per se. Scheib, Gangestad, and Thornhill (1999) found a relationship be- tween women’s attractiveness ratings of faces and symmetry even when symmetry cues were re- moved by presenting only the left or right half of each face. More recently, Jones et al. (2004) also noted that some cues to facial symmetry may remain in half faces. In particular, it has been pro- posed that these features are masculine traits (Scheib et al., 1999) though other authors have found that some of the proportions also reflect feminine characteristics (Penton-Voak et al., 2001). Two recent studies (Gangestad & Thornhill, 2003; Thornhill & Gangestad, 2006) indicate that the degree of facial masculinity is an honest signal of quality in men. Moreover, facial masculinization was found to covary with symmetry leading to the conclusion that facial masculinity partly advertises underlying developmental stability and disease resistance. Thornhill and Gangestad (2006) argue that this may apply to both sexes (but see Koehler, Simmons, Rhodes, & Peters, 2004). B. Fink et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 41 (2006) 491–499 493 Besides evidence from studies providing support for the notion that facial symmetry is associ- ated with attractiveness and health judgements (e.g., Jones et al., 2001; Perrett et al., 1999; Rhodes et al., 2001b) is has also been suggested that symmetry may simply covary with features that indi- cate an individual’s condition, rather than acting as a primary cue to attractiveness. For example, Enquist and Arak (1994), Johnstone (1994), and later Enquist and Johnstone (1997) have argued that the observed preferences for facial symmetry is not the result of evolved psychological adap- tations, but rather is a by-product of the perceptual system’s design. Although the biological basis and universality of symmetry is still a matter of debate (see review by Weeden & Sabini, 2005), computer graphic studies using two-dimensional faces as stimuli are providing arguments against the perceptual-bias view for symmetry preferences in human faces (Jones et al., 2001; Little & Jones, 2003; Simmons, Rhodes, Peters, & Koehler, 2004). These studies favor the view that pref- erences for symmetrical faces reflect an evolutionary adaptation towards high-quality mates. Fur- ther support for an adaptive explanation of symmetry preferences comes from studies that relate symmetry to other modalities such as body odour (Rikowski & Grammer, 1999) or voice (Hughes, Dispenza, & Gallup, 2002). Such (non-visual) cues to an individual’s condition seem to be incompatible with the statement that symmetry is merely the by-product of the visual system. The present study was concerned with the relation between facial symmetry, and perceived attractiveness, health, and personality traits. According to the evolutionary view that preferences for symmetric faces may have some adaptive value, we hypothesized that individuals selecting a potential mate would have evolved a profound interest in, and attraction to symmetry because of the positive fitness effects from mating or pairing with a symmetric partner. If this were true, we expected that symmetrical faces would be considered more attractive and healthy than asymmetric faces. Moreover, based on the assumption that facial symmetry is an indicator of physiological health Shackelford and Larsen (1997) hypothesized that more facially symmetrical people should also be emotionally healthier and found some support for this assertion. This was put forward by Noor and Evans (2003) and more recently by Fink, Neave, Manning, and Grammer (2005). Both studies provide further evidence for an association between facial symmetry and perceived but also actual personality characteristics. However, these studies also report mixed results with re- gard to the potential inherent role of perceived attractiveness, which may confound a true link between facial symmetry and personality. Consequently, we hypothesized that an association be- tween facial symmetry and personality attributions should remain even when controlling for per- ceived attractiveness. If this were true then it would tie into accumulating evidence against the perceptual bias view of symmetry preferences. 2. Methods 2.1. Participants A total of 55 Caucasian volunteers (27 males and 28 females) aged between 20 and 30 (mean age = 24.15, SD = .51) were recruited from the Vienna Biocenter at the University of Vienna, Austria, They were compensated with a research credit within the human ethology program. 494 B. Fink et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 41 (2006) 491–499 2.2. Stimuli Twenty randomly selected faces of Caucasian females aged 18–25 out of a
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